


The End

by mean_whale



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, Break Up, Future Fic, Insecurity, Loss, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-17
Updated: 2019-10-17
Packaged: 2020-12-21 09:44:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21072866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mean_whale/pseuds/mean_whale
Summary: Bokuto returns home from a game only to find a letter addressed to him.





	The End

“I’m home!” Bokuto greets at the door.

He hauls his volleyball gear inside, takes off his shoes, hangs his coat up.

“Keiji?” he tries.

The apartment is quiet.

Bokuto leaves his bags at the door and walks deeper into their home. It’s quiet, the air seems to stand still. Something’s squeezing his heart, making it hard for it to beat. Every step makes the feeling grow, it’s spreading into his lungs, to his ribs. His stomach. His knees.

He stops at the entrance to the living room. At first glance, everything looks normal: the cushions on the sofa are arranged in the way Keiji likes, the floor has recently been washed, the curtains are framing the window, letting the sunlight in. There are flowers in a vase on the coffee table. But then there are the things that are missing: most of the books from the bookshelf, a few picture frames. Keiji’s blanket.

Bokuto turns towards the bedroom. The bed is impeccably made. Bokuto’s bedside table has been decluttered. The one on Keiji’s side is empty.

Bokuto feels hollow when he looks in the closet and sees his clothes, beautifully ironed, hanging alone. There’s not even a pair of socks of Keiji left.

He doesn’t know what to think. His thoughts aren’t forming correctly, he can’t make sense of anything he’s seeing. He wobbles to the kitchen. There’s food waiting in the fridge, neatly packed in plastic containers. Keiji’s favourite cups are no longer in the cupboard.

Then he sees the letter waiting on the dining table. His legs feel weak as he makes his way towards it. He feels like there’s a hand on his neck, strangling all air out of him.

The sinking feeling drops him onto a chair as he sees Keiji’s neat handwriting. It looks like it’s been printed on the envelope. Bokuto’s fingers shake as he pulls the letter out and opens it. He lays it on the table, suddenly afraid of wrinkling it with his clumsy hands.

Keiji’s handwriting isn’t quite as neat in the letter. It’s wobbly and uncertain, and Bokuto has never seen Keiji represent himself like that. He’s afraid of the words, but once his eyes catch his name at the top, he can’t stop reading.

_Dearest Koutarou,_

_I need to apologise. I never wanted to be one of those people, who leave without a word, who break up with someone not face-to-face but through text. I hope a letter is at least a bit more personal._

_I’m sorry I couldn’t talk to you about this. <strike>It’s just that</strike> <strike>I just couldn’t</strike> When I look at you, I feel warm. When I look at you, when I talk to you, I can’t say anything that could make you crumble because I hate seeing it._

_You must understand that I still care about you deeply._

_I still love you.<strike>in a way.</strike>_

_But it’s not the kind of love you want it to be, or what I wanted it to be. It’s not the kind of love you deserve from your significant other. I don’t think I’m capable of that kind of love._

_You deserve the world, and I can no longer give it to you._

_I don’t know when things started changing. Maybe they never changed, maybe we were always not meant to be anything more than good friends. Maybe it was a mistake for me to ask for more._

_All these years, I have been happy, but there has also been a part of me that’s deeply dissatisfied. It’s not your fault, Koutarou. You have done everything you possibly could to make me feel good, to make me feel like this will work out. You have been the best boyfriend anyone could ask for._

_That’s why it’s so hard for me to talk to you about this. That’s why I never gave you any signs of things being something other than perfect. I don’t know why I can’t be completely happy with you. I wish I could. I wish we could continue building our lives together. I have liked every moment of it, even the bad times._

_Sometimes I feel like there is something broken in me, and that something is what I need to feel completely happy. I have been trying to ignore it. I even managed to ignore it for quite a few years, but lately I feel so heavy, I feel like I have to force myself through every day with you, and I don’t want to do that to you as much as I don’t want to live like that._

_I don’t know how to explain it to you in a way that doesn’t seem so vague. I wish I had the words to make you see how I feel, but also to convince you that you have done nothing wrong._

_Because I know you, Koutarou. And I know that you’re thinking you did something that drove me away. And you didn’t. If anything, you have been a great help in keeping me afloat through bad times. You have been so, so good to me._

_But trying to keep going with this relationship is unfair to you. I know that eventually I would have snapped, I would have ended up saying things I don’t mean just because I’m so frustrated with myself, but because I don’t fully understand what it is, it’s easier to blame someone else._

_I tried blaming you, in fact. I tried, and I failed, because every time you smile, my heart feels light, and every time you cry, I want to protect you. I care so much about you, but there’s this restlessness inside me that won’t let me stay._

_I’m sorry. You deserved a proper conversation about this. You deserved to know beforehand that I was unhappy. I guess I’m a coward. I just didn’t want to have to see the pain I’m causing you, so I’m taking this childish way out._

_I promise that I’ll talk to you, if you still want to. No matter how long it takes, I will talk to you about this, if you want. Now that I have written it all down, now that you know, now that I already hurt you, it will be easier to talk. And I hate myself for thinking this. I hate that I pulled you into my life, let you stay for so long, let you remain under the impression that we could be forever._

_When we first met, I was already like this. I already knew that a part of me was trying to tear down everything I tried to build, every friendship felt like it was suffocating me, every day of routine was a weight on my chest. And I still let you in, and I still let you believe that I was a whole person, that there wasn’t this decaying cavity in my soul._

_Maybe I’ve said too much. Maybe it would have been better to leave and not say anything. I feel like I wasted your teenage years by pulling you along, while, I guess, deep down inside I knew it wouldn’t last. In a way I’m surprised we lasted this long._

_I’m sorry._

_Please, don’t stay alone. I know you feel strongly, I know how difficult it is for you to deal with stumbling blocks, especially when they are emotional. Please, ask someone to stay with you until you feel better._

_I don’t want you to feel like this is the end of your life. It isn’t. I know it hurts, but eventually you will find someone who can make you happy every day of the rest of your life. And I sincerely hope that you will find that person in the near future. You deserve to be happy._

_Akaashi Keiji_

Bokuto stares at the characters of Keiji’s full name until they blur with tears. He blinks, forcing the tears away.

The need to cry is a wave, intense, but it quickly pulls away. Bokuto’s left sitting there by the table, Keiji’s letter spread out in front of him. He leans back in the chair, still looking at the pages filled with Keiji’s writing. He can’t remember the last time he’s seen Keiji write so much.

The sun is setting, painting the kitchen gold. Bokuto breaths, chest expanding in his peripheral vision. He can see parts of himself, sitting in that chair, uncertain, scared. Empty.

What is he supposed to do?

He wants to call Keiji. He wants to call and hear Keiji talk, pretend that everything’s still okay, he hasn’t returned home yet, he’s still out of town for a game. If he closes his eyes, maybe Keiji will come back, maybe he never left, this is a nightmare, and Bokuto will wake up any minute now.

He can’t really see his surroundings. He blinks, the tears haven’t returned yet. It’s good. He needs to think.

No thoughts are forming in his head. He feels like he has walked into a different reality, their front door was a portal and he’s slipped to a different plane of existence. He shouldn’t be here. He should go back out, retrace his steps and make sure that when he returns, he takes a different route. That will take him back to his life, to his home where Keiji is sitting in the comfortable armchair, reading a book with a small frown on his face.

Was that frown always a sign? Maybe Bokuto should have seen something, anything that might indicate that Keiji isn’t happy. Why wasn’t Keiji happy with him?

He looks at the letter. It doesn’t have the answers he wants, the characters don’t form new words, new meanings. They don’t talk to him, don’t tell him what Keiji felt writing them down.

Bokuto feels numb. He’s existing in this space, in this moment and this universe, but he feels like something has gone wrong. Something in the world, in the existence itself, something went wrong and now Keiji is gone.

Something vibrates against his thigh. He looks down and realises it’s his phone. He slowly pulls it out of his pocket, lifts it to his ear without saying a thing.

“Hey, Bokuto!” Kuroo’s voice is loud and happy. “You made it home yet?”

Bokuto doesn’t know what to say. Is he home? Is this still home, now that it’s missing the person who helped make it home? This is now just another apartment, another stop, before he continues on with his life, before he lets the current push him forward to a new place.

Will any place ever feel like home again?

“Bokuto?” he faintly hears against his ear.

It should be Keiji talking to him. Keiji’s voice should greet him rather than this hollow echo of everything Bokuto has ever done wrong, everything that ended up driving Keiji away from him.

“Koutarou?” he hears, and if he focuses enough, he can turn it into Keiji.

He closes his eyes, tries his best to swallow around the lump in his throat.

“Can,” he tries, has to take a moment to level his voice, and he can imagine how Kuroo is holding his breath not to miss a word of what Bokuto is about to say. “Can you come over?”

He shouldn’t ask. He shouldn’t involve Kuroo in this, in his own mess, something he made happen, he did this.

“Of course,” Kuroo says.

Bokuto doesn’t say anything else. He thinks Kuroo tries to say something, but he disconnects the call before the words can come out.

The only sounds he hears are his own breaths and the clock ticking. It has never been so quiet, he has never noticed how loud the clock is. Keiji was always enough to drown out such pointless background noises.

Keiji is gone. Bokuto is still breathing, somehow. The world should have ended when Keiji stepped out of the door with the intention of never coming back, but somehow Bokuto is still here, sitting in this chair that’s usually Keiji’s spot. Was. He doesn’t think Keiji wants any of the furniture. If he did, he could have arranged for it while Bokuto was gone.

While Bokuto was gone.

He wonders if those moments felt like reprieve for Keiji, who was always quietly suffering. He wonders if he’s ever going to get reprieve from feeling like this, so confused yet certain. It’s a heavy pit in his gut, a weight keeping him down, and he thinks that he’ll never walk again.

He doesn’t know how long it takes before the doorbell rings. He doesn’t know why he thought it was a good idea to ask Kuroo here. He doesn’t want to talk, he doesn’t want to reveal how Keiji never wanted to stay with him. There has to be something wrong with him, something in him that pushes people out. Keiji is too kind to say things like that. Was. Is.

Keiji isn’t dead.

But it feels like he is.

It feels like Bokuto is.

Dead.

Is this what it feels like when someone dies? This is him losing someone important, but Keiji is still out there somewhere, leading a better life now that he’s no longer held back by Bokuto’s… insecurities and immaturity and something, something more, something worse.

“Hello?” he hears from the door.

It’s coming from the inside so Kuroo must have had his spare key with him.

Convenient.

How can some things still be so convenient, how can they line up like they were meant to happen, when Keiji is gone?

Will he ever see Keiji again? Keiji is friends with both Kuroo and Kenma, just like Bokuto. Eventually they will have to see each other again, face to face, Keiji right there, so close that Bokuto can nearly touch him, if he just reaches out far enough, somehow, he can pull Keiji back. He can pull Keiji back.

“Bokuto?”

Kuroo is standing in the doorway, then flicks the lights on. Bokuto doesn’t know when it got so dark.

It’s unfair to think that he could get Keiji back. He can’t. He has to let him go, because Keiji was suffering. He was suffocating in this relationship because Bokuto can’t give people enough space, he can’t let them breathe because he’s stupid and clingy and too demanding. Maybe if he didn’t require so much physical comfort Keiji would have stayed?

“What’s going on?” Kuroo asks.

Bokuto finally turns to look at him. Kuroo’s forehead has a light sheen of sweat on it, and Bokuto wonders if he ran up the stairs to get here faster. Kuroo is standing there as proof of Keiji’s leaving. This isn’t a weird pocket in time where no one else exists but Bokuto.

“Where’s Akaashi?” Kuroo asks.

Bokuto’s eyes drop to the letter. He knows Kuroo notices. Kuroo comes closer.

“What’s this?” he asks.

He leans closer, takes a cursory look.

“Can I read this?” he asks.

Bokuto nods.

He doesn’t care. It’s right that Kuroo finds out what a horrible boyfriend he has been all this time. How he has forced Keiji to stay when he wanted to go.

Kuroo doesn’t touch the letter, lets it remain spread on the table. He’s standing close and he’s warm. If Bokuto closes his eyes, maybe the warmth will turn into Keiji. He doesn’t try.

“I don’t understand,” Kuroo says. “He just left?”

Kuroo has turned to look at Bokuto, Bokuto can feel it, but he doesn’t want to face him. He doesn’t want to see the pity.

“And he never said anything?” Kuroo asks.

Bokuto shakes his head. It feels heavy. He’s heavy. He’s sinking.

“I’m sorry,” Kuroo says.

Bokuto isn’t sure if Kuroo pulls him in or if he leans in, but he ends up with his face against Kuroo, Kuroo’s arms around his head, hands a soft pressure on his shoulders.

“I’m sorry,” Kuroo says again.

And Bokuto finally lets the tears come.

**Author's Note:**

> I was reading a book where the main character's roommate abruptly moves out and this fic wanted to be born. So I wrote and edited this in like 2 hours, hopefully I didn't miss anything critical.
> 
> [Twitter](https://twitter.com/mean_whale) \- [writing list](https://mean-whale.dreamwidth.org/557.html)


End file.
